First attested in Thomas Browne's Religio Medici (1643) in noun sense 1, ostensibly from New Latin suīcīdium, from suī (genitive reflexive pronoun) +‎ -cīdium (“act of killing or murder”), but often believed to have originated in English before entering Latin. Displaced native Middle English seolf-cwale from Old English selfcwalu (literally “self-slaughter”), after which suicide may have been modelled, or calqued (compare manuscript). Noun sense 3 is perhaps by analogy with words like homicide, patricide (see -cide), or, although unlikely, from Medieval Latin suīcīda; see the Etymology section at suīcīdium.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈs(j)uːɪˌsaɪd/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈsuɪˌsaɪd/
• (Philippines) IPA^(key): /ˌsuːɪˈsaɪd/, /ˈswisaɪd/
• (Indic) IPA^(key): /s(j)u.saiɖ/, /sʊˈsaiɖ/, /s(j)ʊwɪˈsaiɖ/

• Audio (Received Pronunciation):

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• Audio (US):

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• Rhymes: -uːɪsaɪd
• Hyphenation: su‧i‧cide

suicide (countable and uncountable, plural suicides)

1. (uncountable) The act of intentionally killing oneself.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:suicide

   Hypernyms: see Thesaurus:killing, Thesaurus:death

   • 1838 January 27, Abraham Lincoln, The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions‎^[1]:

     As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

   • 1904, Harold MacGrath, chapter 22, in The Man On The Box:

     The cowardice of suicide was abhorrent to him.

   • 1970, “Suicide Is Painless”, Mike Altman (lyrics), Johnny Mandel (music):

     I realize and I can see / That suicide is painless / It brings on many changes / And I can take or leave it if I please

   • 2012 April 19, Josh Halliday, “Free speech haven or lawless cesspool – can the internet be civilised?”, in the Guardian‎^[2]:

     Other global taboos, such as sex and suicide, manifest themselves widely online, with websites offering suicide guides and Hot XXX Action seconds away at the click of a button. […]

2. (countable) A particular instance of a person intentionally killing oneself, or of multiple people doing so.
   • 1919, Edgar Wallace, chapter 14, in The Secret House:

     There had been half a dozen mysterious suicides which had been investigated by Scotland Yard.

   • 1999, Philip H. Melling, Fundamentalism in America: Millennialism, Identity and Militant Religion, Edinburgh University Press, →ISBN, page 192:

     In this way the Heaven's Gate community were not only escaping the threat of 'global destruction', they were hurling themselves directly into 'the lap of God', using their suicide as a way of 'bridging the chasm' between an earthly world which had no future and 'a thousand years of unmitigated peace'.

   • 2023 November 15, Ian Prosser talks to Stefanie Foster, “A healthy person is a more productive person”, in RAIL, number 996, page 36:

     Prosser's focus on mental health in particular also led him to the (sometimes) life-threatening ways this can affect all of us, whether we work on the railway or not. In 2020-21, there were 247 suicides or suspected suicides on the national network - that's one every 35 hours.

3. (countable) A person who has intentionally killed themself.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:suicidee

   • 1915, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter 95, in Of Human Bondage, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, →OCLC:

     "I remember one suicide," she said to Philip, "who threw himself into the Thames."

   • 1980 December 21, James Atlas, “A Poetic Triumph”, in The New York Times‎^[3], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 19 November 2025:

     Poets have been ill-fated in Russia ever since the Revolution: Vladimir Mayakovsky and Sergei Esenin, among the two great poets of the Revolutionary era, were suicides; […]

   • 1984 August 18, Walta Borawski, “Another Country (review)”, in Gay Community News, volume 12, number 6, page 13:

     Early in the film two boys are caught having sex […] and this exposure leads to suicide and much conversation. "It wasn't even with a man from this house," remarks one of the suicide's house fellows, and an off-camera matron immediately folds the dead lad's mattress.

4. (figuratively) An action that could cause the literal or figurative death of a person or organization, although death is not the aim of the action.

   political suicide

   • 1959 February 9, Everett Dirksen, Congressional Record‎^[4], archived from the original on 16 January 2009, page 2100:

     […] I do not want the Congress or the country to commit fiscal suicide on the installment plan.

   • 2000, Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child, The Ice Limit, →ISBN:

     "Mr. Glinn," said Britton, "it's suicide to take a huge ship like this past the Ice Limit. Especially in this weather."

   • 2004, Robert D. Lock, Job Search: Career Planning Guide, →ISBN, page 24:

     […] it's suicide to change jobs in mid-career.

   • 2010, BioWare, Mass Effect 2 (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: Normandy SR-2:

     Miranda: No good. Both routes are blocked. See these doors? The only way past is to get someone to open them from the other side. / Shepard: It's not a fortress; there's got to be something. Here, maybe we can send someone in through this ventilation shaft. / Jacob: Practically a suicide mission. I volunteer. / Miranda: I appreciate the thought, Jacob, but you couldn't shut down the security systems in time. We need to send a tech expert.

   • 2013 August 21, Tariq Ali, “A suicide note to Trotsky that displayed political passions we should not forget”, in The Guardian‎^[5]:

     Italian communism and those on its left had committed political suicide.

   • 2018 October 17, Drachinifel, 25:13 from the start, in Last Ride of the High Seas Fleet - Battle of Texel 1918‎^[6], archived from the original on 4 August 2022:

     Amidst all the chaos, Großer Kurfürst slows up and strikes her colors, her crew having had enough, and have^[sic] overpowered the officers - willing to fight, but not willing to commit suicide.

   • 2026 February 3, “The End of Free Speech” (10:39 from the start), in LegalEagle‎^[7], spoken by Liz Dye, retrieved 3 February 2026:

     He did not mention that Trump is about as popular with the British public as drug-resistant syphilis and that it would be political suicide to bribe him with cash out of the public fisc.

5. (countable, US, slang) A beverage combining all available flavors at a soda fountain.

   Synonyms: graveyard, swamp water

   • 1994, Christopher Buckley, Cruising State: Growing Up in Southern California, University of Nevada Press, →ISBN, page 34:

     You could sit at a corner and order your Suicide, and one of two twin brothers who worked there would hold an old-fashioned soda glass, a heavy tall V-shaped one with a round foot at the bottom, and go down the line with one shot of everything—cherry, lemon, Coke, and chocolate syrups—before adding soda water.

   • 2000, Mark Pendergrast, For God, Country and Coca-Cola, Basic Books, →ISBN, page 15:

     Using Coca-Cola as a base, a suicide called for the addition of every other flavor available.

6. A diabolo trick where one of the sticks is released and allowed to rotate 360° round the diabolo until it is caught by the hand that released it.
7. (countable) A run comprising a series of sprints of increasing lengths, each followed immediately by a return to the start, with no pause between one sprint and the next.

   The coach makes us run suicides at the end of each basketball practice.

8. A children's game of throwing a ball against a wall and at other players, who are eliminated by being struck.
9. (attributive) Pertaining to a suicide bombing.

   suicide belt

   suicide vest

• See usage note at commit suicide.

• (children's game): dodgeball, tag

suicide (third-person singular simple present suicides, present participle suiciding, simple past and past participle suicided)

1. (intransitive) To intentionally kill oneself.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:commit suicide

   • 1917, Lucy Maud Montgomery, chapter 11, in Anne's House of Dreams:

     "Her husband suicided three years ago. Just like a man!"

   • 1953, Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye, Penguin, published 2010, page 136:

     Seems a lady poet suicided at Verringer's ranch in Sepulveda canyon one time.

2. (transitive) To kill (someone) and make their death appear to have been a suicide rather than a homicide (now especially as part of a conspiracy).
   • 1898 October 29, Punch, or the London charivari, page 196:

     Have bought The Shanghai Chopsticks. Proprietor at first refused to sell, but when I ordered the boiling oil he became more reasonable. Editor reports that circulation is not what it ought to be. […] Will publish proclaimation, "Any person found not in possession of The Shanghai Chopsticks (current number) will be suicided."

   • 2011, Tobias Jones, White Death, →ISBN, page 273:

     Even if he did get charged, he would be suicided long before he could involve one of the city's most important politicians in the scam.

   • 2013 September 23, Philip Willan, The Vatican at War: From Blackfriars Bridge to Buenos Aires, iUniverse, →ISBN, page 257:

     Gelli also expressed skepticism about Calvi's ability to climb out over the scaffolding in his leather-soled city shoes. 'I think they suicided him.

3. (ambitransitive, figurative) To destroy or self-destruct.
   • 1957, The Institute of Mineral Industries, Proceedings - Issues 181-182, page 315:

     At the conclusion of each wind, the movement of the driver's control lever back to the neutral position, and consequently the movement of the Ward Leonard controller back to its neutral position, firstly opens the directional contacts which isolate the generator field from the Ward Leonard exciter and, secondly, operates contactors which eliminate the effect of the residual field by suiciding the generator field as outlined above.

   • 2006, Ugliness?: Destroying a Country, →ISBN:

     The problem is that the degradation of our common space requires a complete social transformation, because it's a part of Galician society's general degradation, a society demographically declining — demographically suiciding, as it were — with inactive employers and intellectual elites comfortably disconnected from real life;

   • 2010, Martin H. Greenberg, The End of the World: Stories of the Apocalypse, →ISBN, page 189:

     Here in America we just called them survivors, after the Chinese suicided their psychotic society in the seventies, and destroyed most of urban America in the process.

• hara-kiri
• kamikaze
• seppuku

• Douglas Harper (2001–2026), “suicide”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

• IPA^(key): /sɥi.sid/, /sy.sid/
• Homophones: suicident, suicides

• Audio (France (Saint-Maurice-de-Beynost)):

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• Audio (Switzerland (Valais)):

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• Audio (France (Toulouse)):

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• Audio (France (Vosges)):

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Borrowed from New Latin suīcīdium, from suī (“oneself”) and -cīdium (“-cide”).

suicide m (plural suicides)

1. suicide

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

suicide

1. inflection of suicider:
   1. first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
   2. second-person singular imperative

• “suicide”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012

• IPA^(key): /su.iˈt͡ʃi.de/, /swiˈt͡ʃi.de/^[1]
• Rhymes: -ide
• Hyphenation: su‧i‧cì‧de, sui‧cì‧de

suicide f pl

1. feminine plural of suicida

suicide f pl

1. plural of suicida

• sudicie

Borrowed from English suicide.

suicide m (plural suicides)

1. (Jersey) suicide

suicide

1. inflection of suicidar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative

suicide

1. inflection of suicidar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative